


Started to lose control the more we accelerate

by thought



Series: Help I'm Alive [4]
Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Grief/Mourning, John Sheppard's likely appropriate levels of paranoia, M/M, Rush is not here to debate treason vs. sussession, obligatory non denominational office parties, pre-independent atlantis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22514323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: "David," says Rush, a little helplessly. "Going to prison for murder is going to put a significant strain on my ability to manage this project."orShit starts to get a bit too real.
Relationships: Nicholas Rush/John Sheppard
Series: Help I'm Alive [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1327028
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42





	Started to lose control the more we accelerate

**Author's Note:**

> This took me so long to write, oh my god. Anyway I was not expecting for an actual plot to sneak it's way in and neither was Rush, let me tell you.

"They're giving me a planet," Rush says.

Sheppard spins the novelty pen he'd accidentally stolen from one of the linguists through his fingers, making the artificial snow swirl in the tiny globe. "I'm pretty sure at least some of those words do not mean what you think they mean. And if they do, Rodney's gonna start feeling like the unloved step-child."

Rush gestures with the sugar cookie he's been carrying, uneaten, for the past five minutes. "Blowing up a solar system is the reason he can't have nice things."

"Not an entire solar system," Sheppard says. And then, a little alarmed, "Please tell me you were just breaking into our reports out of boredom and it's not actually applicable to your secret project."

"Almost certainly not," Rush says, dismissively. "But keep him away from the planet just to be safe. It does have the potential to be volatile."

There are... a lot of things that Sheppard could say, but it's not like Rodney hasn't made equally disparaging remarks about Rush. It isn't Rush's fault he hasn't been given the sort of responsibility that allows for catastrophic fuck ups, although it sounds like he's well on his way.

Sheppard follows Rush into an empty elevator and as soon as the doors have closed, Rush says, "How long, quantifiably, are you physically able to stay away from Atlantis?"

"You do realize that, contrary to what spy movies have taught us, elevators are not actually magical surveillance-free zones?"

Rush frowns at him. "It's a simple question. And my project has the full blessing of the SGC, even if you don't have the clearance for it."

Sheppard pops the cap off the pen, then back on again. "I keep telling you, I have the clearance, I just don't care." Probably these are both lies, but Sheppard's hoping if he keeps saying it will somehow become true. He also can't imagine how Rush wouldn't understand the difference between having a high security clearance and being read in on every shiny government-funded scientific breakthrough that one General or another has taken a special interest in.

"Hmm," says Rush. "Do you really believe all of your paranoia is justified?" He's not looking at Sheppard, but he sounds more curious than mocking.

"Yes," says Sheppard. The elevator doors slide open.

"You should come to the holiday party," Sheppard says.

"I absolutely should not."

"Ok, probably not, but do it anyway."

"Who do you even know well enough here to be forced into going?"

Sheppard winces internally. "I know people. I know Carter. And Mitchel."

"Carter's not even in the state at the moment," Rush says, dismissively. "And I can't imagine you actually enjoy Mitchel's company beyond the most superficial level."

"There's nothing wrong with superficial," says Sheppard, who has had about five meaningful friendships in his life.

"My apologies, I must've forgot who I'm speaking to. Far be it for me to criticize one of your primary characteristics."

"If I just wanted to be insulted by someone smarter than me I didn't have to leave Atlantis." He grabs the cookie from Rush. "Is there anything wrong with this?"

"Nothing beyond the obvious," Rush says. Sheppard stuffs half the cookie in his mouth and walks faster.

*

"I really," Sheppard says, from Rush's kitchen floor, "liked the part where you made it very clear that I'm fundamentally linked to Atlantis, and then ten seconds later pointed out how I have no significant emotional ties to Earth. That was definitely the best part of that conversation, closely followed by the part where I'm pretty sure you want to use me as a lab rat/LIGHTSWITCH on your fancy new planet."

Rush wants to be more drunk than he is, but the only alcohol in his flat is a bottle of pre-mixed eggnog that Voker had left on his desk the previous week. Sheppard seems entirely unbothered by it, likely because he's been forced, by virtue of hundreds of first contact situations, to perfect the art of drinking whatever is placed in front of him with a smile. It's also hitting him harder than it should, and Rush is trying to decide if Sheppard has neglected to eat anything beyond the fucking snowflake biscuit that he'd liberated from Rush earlier that day, or if he's on substantially stronger painkillers than his physical ease would suggest.

Likely the latter. Sheppard is careless on Earth in a way that Rush suspects he never is on Atlantis in some sort of subconscious defiant attempt to deny the increasing discomfort he experiences whenever he's on-world. Rush has yet to determine if the discomfort is inverse to his distance from the SGC, and his results are biased by the fact that simply existing within the entire state of Colorado is enough to make anyone abnormally fucking uncomfortable.

"You're going to reach a point where this level of distrust is unsustainable," Rush says.

"Yup," says Sheppard. He isn't wearing shoes, and there's a hole in his left sock. It's somehow simultaneously perfectly predictable and completely antithetical to Sheppard's character.

Rush considers, not for the first time, that Sheppard is a hallucination. It would, quite frankly, make far more sense that his actual existence, this bundle of chameleon contradictions wrapped up in an American military uniform who comes from a living alien city in another galaxy straight to Rush's impersonal kitchen and back again like a child running from cupboard to bedframe in a game of hide and seek.

"You should come back to Atlantis," Sheppard says.

"You should buy some fucking socks," says Rush, and leaves the kitchen to go splash water on his face.

"Sorry," says Sheppard, standing just outside the bathroom door, hands fisted behind his back. "That was... too much."

Rush tries to meet his gaze in the mirror but Sheppard's eyes keep darting away. "No," says Rush. "It wasn't. It was simply... unexpected."

"You don't have anything on Earth, either."

Rush flinches. "How the fuck can you say that to me?" he says, quietly, aware he sounds fucking ridiculous and unable to moderate his tone beyond only permitting enough airflow to keep himself from screaming at Sheppard. Sheppard takes a step back. Chameleon fade to someone who doesn't care, hard and other and superior.

"Ok, sorry, clearly you've got some, uhh, feelings. My bad."

"I can't solve it in Pegasus," Rush says, harshly.

Sheppard goes still for a half second, processing. "As in you can't solve it, or it can't be solved?"

"The latter," Rush says. "Probably. Almost certainly."

"And it's that important?"

"Yes," says Rush.

"What is it?"

Rush finally turns to face him, absently shaking the excess water off his hands. "I don't know."

It's the wrong answer. John Sheppard flipped a coin and stepped into the unknown with no guarantee of return. He is not driven by a lack of knowledge in the way Rush is. He cannot possibly comprehend the gnawing emptiness of ignorance, of uncertainty, that has been Rush's constant companion for as long as he can remember and likely before. Sheppard cares about his people. Loyalty. And freedom, though it had taken Rush an embarrassingly long time to set aside his automatic assumptions about the sort of person who joins the military and understand this. For Sheppard, the military was freedom. Until it wasn't. Christ. Of fucking course Sheppard wants Rush to join him in his treasonous intergalactic fairytale. Rush should have predicted this the first time Sheppard had come to Earth with the primary goal of spending time in his company.

"Fuck," Rush says, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples. "I have neither the patience nor the necessary social contexts to deal with your self-defensive temper tantrum. I assume my flat isn't bugged?"

Sheppard stops his slow inching away down the hall and pulls a cube from his jacket pocket. It refracts the harsh florescence of the hall light and Rush can feel his head ache getting worse the longer he looks at it.

"Yeah, we're good," Sheppard says.

Fucking obviously they're "good" or Sheppard wouldn't have been ranting on his kitchen floor. Rush had used the question to keep Sheppard from bolting while rapidly reframing their entire fucking relationship and any consequent predictions or understandings. He wonders if Sheppard's dependence on Ancient technology is physical, psychological, or a deliberate misdirection in anticipation of whatever the fuck it is he's expecting the SGC to eventually attempt to do to him.

"I would need... six months. A year, at the outside," Rush says. He needs fair fucking more than that, of course, not the least of which includes an entirely new branch of mathematics, the destruction of the video game industry, and David to stop fucking pandering to the American military and actually let Rush have final say over resource allocation for the project. None of these are Sheppard's problem.

"There are seemingly unsolvable mysteries on Atlantis, too, you know," Sheppard says, dryly. "You'd still be able to maintain your necessary levels of epistemological suffering."

Rush shakes his head. He wants a fucking cigarette with an intensity he hasn't felt since the obligatory post-funeral tea and cakes and unfamiliar old women patting his cheek, but the balcony isn't practically big enough for two people and it's not as if he's going to leave Sheppard unsupervised with only his own emotional repression for company.

"I'm afraid you've made a poor choice of people in whom to make an emotional investment," he says, trying fiercely for a tone neither cruel nor condescending. The thought of never seeing Sheppard again is more distressing than it has any right to be.

"The last mission I was on," says Sheppard, "we were working with AR-5 and Rodney was stuck on Atlantis with food poisoning, so our only science staff was a chemist. And a year ago I would have left him to take all the readings, to break in to the Ancient computer system, to deactivate the mini black hole generator."

"You could at least try to make your stories sound plausible."

"But I didn’t. We weren't really in any rush, nobody's life was in peril--"

"You're contradicting yourself--"

"there was no emergency. But I was bored, and I had a head ache, and I wanted to go home. So I just. Decoded the encryption on the computer. I mean, it would have taken Rodney half the time, but it would have taken our chemist at least three times as long. I didn’t even think about it, I just did it."

Rush leans against the wall and grinds the knuckles of each hand into his eyes. "Am I meant to be sorry or charmed? I assume this is your attempt at emotional manipulation?"

"Mostly I was pissed," Sheppard says. "First at you, for making that feel like an acceptable thing to do, and then at myself for being more concerned about maintaining a particular image within the military hierarchy than with efficiency."

This is, unquestionably, the most Sheppard has spoken about his emotions and the reasons therefor in the entire time Rush has known him. Rush has no idea how he's meant to react.

When it becomes clear Rush isn't going to say anything, Sheppard shoves his hand back through his hair and glares resentfully. "By which I mean, you're pretty obviously unsuited for the military, and you'd probably be more comfortable in, oh, I don't know, a newly formed isolated micro-society taking the first steps away from a militarized leadership structure hidden under a very thin layer of bureaucracy."

"I think you'll find I'm rather excellent at thriving in environments for which I'm ill fucking suited," Rush says, coolly.

"Yeah," Sheppard says, shortly. "Yeah, this is definitely what thriving looks like."

"Get fucked," Rush says, and goes out on the balcony, fully expecting Sheppard to be on his way out. It's snowing and freezing, which is somehow still a surprise even after three fucking months of Colorado winter to deprogram the habitual expectations of California.

Rush smokes two cigarettes until his fingers are two numb to continue. He thinks, a little vindictively, that Gloria would have understood his position, but that's a lie. She certainly hadn't understood when he'd spent the final weeks of her life buried in his work, present only on the other end of the phone line and often not even then. But in any other situation, in a circumstance where one of them wasn't dying and the other wasn't using work as an excuse to avoid fully connecting with reality, she would have understood. They'd spent years of their marriage living in different cities because neither of them believed that consistently prioritizing their work over their human connections meant those connections had to be severed.

He knows people romanticized the two of them-- Gloria the gentle touch that softened Rush's sharp edges, the dutiful and patient heroine to transform his world. Or, if you were coming from the other side of it, Rush was the stabilizing influence on Gloria’s flighty ambitions, the commoner everyman with his boots on the ground who could show her the beauty in the mundane. The truth of the matter was that they were both as awful as each other, both fiercely passionate and pragmatic enough that the everyday slights and unkindnesses bounced right off, the failures of social convention passing unregistered unless by an outside observer. At twenty-three Gloria had been the only person Rush had ever met who he felt fully understood how his brain worked and shared his over-all outlook on life. He'd felt the same at thirty-three and forty-three and he is still uncertain how he's meant to fully cope with the fact that he will never be so fully understood again.

He doesn't know how to explain to Sheppard that walking away from the nine chevron puzzle unsolved is worse than never seeing Sheppard again. It isn't as if Sheppard's dying, and little use Rush would be to him if he were.

He won't even know when Sheppard dies.

Inside, Sheppard isn't gone. He's lying on the sofa, boots on and hanging over the arm, a bottle of whisky that Rush doesn’t remember owning hugged to his chest.

"What is the likelihood that all contact will be cut off?" Rush asks, sharply. He leans again the balcony door, cool glass against the skin at the back of his neck.

"Depends if they openly take offensive action against us," Sheppard says, not looking at him. "It's not our ideal solution to cut off the wormhole and move the city, but right now it's being predicted as the most likely outcome."

Sheppard takes a drink straight from the bottle, which is a level of self-indulgently performative melodrama that Rush has no patience for in other people. He stalks over to the sofa and yanks the bottle away from Sheppard, capping it and putting it in the fridge for lack of anywhere better. It's good quality, but not Rush's preferred brand, which probably means David left it, given that he and Sheppard are the only other people who have been inside his flat since he moved in.

"How long do I have to decide?" Rush asks, hands planted on the worktop in front of him.

He hears Sheppard moving behind him, but doesn't turn around. "Weeks. We don't have an exact date pinned down, but it's soon."

Rush exhales through his teeth. "I'll consider it," he says.

*

"Everet," says David. "This is Dr. Nicholas Rush, lead scientist on the Icarus Project, math genius, complete and utter asshole, and apparently patron saint of half-dead Lieutenant Colonels, Jesus Christ, Nick, what did you do to him? I'm pretty sure Atlantis would consider murder an act of war."

"Good to see you again too, Colonel," Sheppard says, flatly. He does not salute. He's crisp and freshly showered and clutching a travel mug of black coffee like it's his favourite gun, but there's nothing to be done for the sallow pallor of his skin, or the way his eyes start to wander aimlessly whenever the head ache gets too bad. Rush looks at the generic grunt of a man David's dragged along with him and bites back a comment about Sheppard’s age and alcohol tolerance.

"Hi there," says Young, and even his voice, gravel and false warmth makes Rush want to wipe his hand on his jeans after they've shaken. Young looks like he hasn't slept well in months and hasn't bothered to find a replacement, lethargic and resignedly determined. There's a discoloured band around his left ring finger and his jacket is rumpled and Rush is quite certain he knows everything he will ever need to know about Everet Young in this one moment of observation.

"Hit the nog a bit too hard last night?" Young asks Sheppard, and Rush wants to fucking die right there in the midst of the not-actually-mandatory Stargate holiday luncheon.

David winces, and reaches a hand out like he's going to grab Rush's wrist. Rush glares at him. David glares right back, but tries to hide it under a polite smile.

"That's horrendous," Rush tells him.

"Get fucked," David says. "Colonel Young will be your co-commander for Icarus."

"Ex-fucking-cuse me?" Rush says, horrified. Sheppard is watching the interplay like a tennis match. Young is clearly trying to project enthusiasm and failing.

"There'll be a formal meeting, but I thought it might be nice to introduce you two in advance."

"You thought you might avoid an embarrassing scene if you gave me time to acclimatize myself to my fucking fate," Rush retorts.

Sheppard coughs softly. Telford presses his lips together. "Also true."

"I can already tell we're gonna get along great," Young says.

"David," says Rush, a little helplessly. "Going to prison for murder is going to put a significant strain on my ability to manage this project."

Sheppard is openly snickering by this point, because he has clearly decided that having nothing to lose gives him free reign to put his sadistic tendencies on full display.

Young already looks lost. David is clearly enjoying Rush's suffering, but also quite clearly not actually any happier with the choice of Young as military lead. This was meant to be their project. His and David’s. And instead he's being presented with this roadblock in human form; Rush can already tell Young will be soft at all the wrong times and vice versa, the sort to skip all the required trainings on unconscious bias and diversity and inclusion but lose his nerve when the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few in an emergency. Sheppard had once said of Rush "You may kill somebody for science, but you'll respect the hell out of them while you do it," which is a gross over-simplification and also likely far closer to Shepard's own philosophy than the other man is comfortable with.

"Hey, I promise I'm not that bad," Young says. "We can probably keep it to some gentle maiming."

"I can tell this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship," David says, entirely flat. The corner of Rush's mouth tugs up despite himself. Young chuckles too loudly. Sheppard is bringing shame upon his family a half-step behind Rush, attempting to cough over his laughter and doing a terrible job of it.

Rush sees Mandy across the room and, catching her eye, makes a series of facial expressions he desperately hopes translate to 'please dig up this man's unredacted file and either find a hidden core of brilliance buried deep deep down, or something terrible he's done that I can use as blackmail to keep him out of my way'.

*

"He fucked his subordinate," Mandy says, as soon as Rush walks into her lab, and then, catching a glimpse of Sheppard behind him, "Umm, in the last episode of that fictional TV show that we definitely watch, I mean."

"It's fine," Rush says. "Sheppard has stopped pretending he cares about this organization and/or planet."

"Hey now," Sheppard objects, actually looking a little offended. Rush waves him off.

"That’s a good start, but I don't have enough faith in the military for that to hold much weight."

"Yeah," Mandy says. "But I'm still angry about it. He also got a bunch of people killed, apparently, but that doesn't seem like the sort of thing they'd just let fly for the co-commander of Icarus, so I'm guessing there's more of a story there."

"Still not reassuring."

Sheppard's lips are pressed together. "If there's no official reprimand in his file it was either unavoidable or he has friends in high places. Or they wanted him for something."

"That's entirely unhelpful," Rush says. Rush paces further into the lab, rests his hands on the back of a chair and drops his head. "Fuck. Why would they pull David off the project?"

"Because the two of you together are terrifying?" Mandy suggests, at the same time Sheppard says

"They don't trust you. It's what I would do in this sort of situation."

Rush digs his fingertips into the rough fabric of the chair and keeps his teeth from clenching through deliberate effort. He knows he's overreacting, but at the same time he knows this is a larger setback than it seems on the surface. Breathtakingly significant, actually, if Landry or whoever is above him is that concerned about Rush and Telford having control of the project once it's out from under the mountain. It's either that or they know something about Telford that Rush doesn't, in which case he's been fucked from day one any way you look at it.

"You have to decide," Sheppard says from too close beside him, "what's more important. Opening the lock or what's on the other side of the door."

Rush is already imagining stepping out onto an alien planet located specifically for his use with no one but Young and a hundred strangers at his back. He'd made the joke about killing Young but he's under no illusions as to who would realistically come out on top in a physical altercation. And if they by some miracle keep things civil, Young will hardly permit the sort of experimentation and exploration that will doubtless be necessitated by whatever happens once the ninth chevron has been unlocked. Rush can already feel the entire situation sliding out of his control, is hyper-aware of the press of physical and bureaucratic barriers that surround him, the sliding doors that can be locked with the press of a button. No one would miss him if he disappeared.

But.

No one would miss him if he disappeared.

"Fine," he says, spinning on Sheppard fast enough that he catches the way the other man's shoulders go up like he's bracing himself. Rush stops, puts his hands behind his back and takes a couple deep breaths. Some people, he reminds himself, never hit their father back.

"Hmm?" Sheppard tilts his head like a particularly stupid bird.

"You know what I mean," Rush says. "Fine. But I need two months."

Sheppard's gaze flicks to the side and he opens his mouth, then pauses. Rush waits. Finally, Sheppard straightens up and nods like he's come to a decision. "Ok," he says. "I can give you two months."

"Thank you," Rush says, because he thinks Sheppard needs to hear it.

Mandy says, "I'm googling whether I can be charged with accessory to treason."

**Author's Note:**

> Rush: "I have literally no human connections on this entire planet."  
> Also Rush: "Hey Mandy can you please break into this guy's restricted personnel record so I can blackmail him, because it's very important to me that David and i get to go to space together."


End file.
